Linda Morganstein

is an overeducated writer/artist who also happens to be the product of a Borscht Belt childhood in the Catskills. Her father was a charismatic and emotionally reckless maître d’ in a few world famous hotels. Her mother was a waitress who channeled Marilyn Monroe. As a child, she did the cha-cha and drank Shirley Temples in cocktail lounges. Everyone she knew was a story-teller. Her friends were bartenders and female impersonators. Still, she read everything in the local library without any censorship (thank you, librarian), including Freud, Nabokov, Steinbeck and Agatha Christie. She escaped on scholarship to Vassar, then dropped out and drove a VW bus to California, where she lived in the Bay Area and Sonoma County for many years. Much later, she studied with Jane Smiley at Iowa State University. Eventually, she made my way to Minnesota. She currently resides in Saint Paul, Minnesota with her understanding spouse Melanie and their exceptional dog, Courage. In addition to writing, she is an avid golfer, gardener and sourdough bread-baker.